


Ashwinder eggs and rose thorns

by ohmybgosh



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: A late Valentine’s Day gift!, Aberforth is a dirty old man and we will drag him for it, Alternate Universe, Harry Potter AU, Oh my god they were wand mates, Polish Robin is the tiny hill I live on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmybgosh/pseuds/ohmybgosh
Summary: Steve asks Billy to be his Valentine.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 17
Kudos: 92
Collections: harringrove for Australia





	Ashwinder eggs and rose thorns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morganadelacour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganadelacour/gifts).



> For dearest Morgana! Thank you for your delightful prompt and for participating in this, I had so much fun writing for you and I hope this is exactly what you wanted <3
> 
> Big endless thank you to my pal Moose, who is the expert on all things HP AU
> 
> I love weird magical facts and world building, so there are lots of those peppered throughout. The ingredients in the title are necessary for a certain love potion! Billy’s wand core is dragon heartstring, too :) Also - fun fact, the name Giles can mean “young goat” heh ^^

“Ok, dingus, what’s the difference between fresh and dried nettles? In terms of usage in potion. So don’t tell me the difference is how one is fresh and one is dried.”

_ Cough, cough.  _ Pages rustled in the shelves beside them. Hidden in the aisles he could hear the scratching of a quill against parchment, the giggle of a group of third years scurrying out, a chiding  _ hiss _ from the ancient librarian who dusted the books on display at the front desk. 

Late winter sun blistered the February frost that clung to the window above the scraped up old wooden table in Section Thirty-Four - dedicated to shelves and shelves of books all about the proper disposal of hazardous materials, ranging from noxious Norwegian Ridgeback bile and toxic potions gone awry - a back corner of the library that was often unoccupied and a favorite nook of two particular students studying for N.E.W.T.s. 

“Hey, dingus! Steve?”

Steve, who’d been staring out the window watching a group of seventh year Gryffindors charm snowballs to catapult themselves at a disgruntled group of fifth year Slytherins returning from a chilly Care of Magical Creatures class at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, jumped. 

He blinked, turning to his companion, rubbing his eyes in the dim light of the library, which clashed extraordinarily with the blinding light from outside, the bright mid afternoon sun that reflected against the bright white snow. 

“Sorry, what?” 

“You’re not paying attention.” His companion flicked her quill at him, a spot of black ink landing on his yellow tie. 

“I am! Sorry, Bucks, it’s stifling in here.” He rubbed a thumb over the ink, succeeding in making it bleed into the silk of his tie. 

“Fresh and dried nettles, Harrington. What’s the difference?”

Steve scratched the back of his neck. “Nettles…”

“Remember the rhyme we came up with?” 

“Dried equals, um, oh! Herbicide! Dried nettles are for Herbicide Potion. So then fresh are for um, rashes? No, wait! Boils! ‘Cause fresh ain’t spoiled. Boil Curing Potion. Ha!”

Steve sat back in his chair, grinning.

Robin Buckley, his closest friend and reluctant studying companion, smiled back brightly. 

“Bingo! Ok, last one.” She dipped her quill in ink, checking off the penultimate question in chapter six of  _ Robertson Dinglemiemes’ Guide to N.E.W.T Prep: Seventy Fifth Edition _ . 

“What type of deity is the herb wormwood associated with? Bonus points if you can name a specific deity.” 

“What are the bonus points for? I’m just studying.”

“You get to tell people that your best friend is smarter than Robert Dingleberry.”

Steve snorted. Robin smirked but waved him on. 

“Wormwood…” he trailed off and gave her a helpless look. 

Robin sighed and rolled her eyes at him. “Also known as  _ artemisia absinthium _ , that’s a big hint.” 

“Oh! It’s used to make absinthe!  _ Oh, _ ” he smacked himself on the forehead. “Artemis! It’s associated with lunar deities. Selene!” 

“Nice one. Though, technically Selene was replaced by Artemis in classical Greek mythology. I’d also accept Tsukiyomi, Khonsu, Thoth, or Diana.” 

Robin pulled her wand out of her book bag, thin and bendy, a smidge shorter than Steve’s, pine wood and with a core of Phoenix feather. Steve’s own was tucked into his jacket pocket; larch, quite flexible, with a core of dragon heartstring. 

Steve’s mother used to tell him an old witch's tale about wand compatibility - “ _ Find a soulmate with a wand of the same core, and you’ll be together forevermore.” _

It was codswallop, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t something that came to mind when special people piqued his interest. Before he and Robin became close friends, he asked her about her wand. Robin’s  _ babscia  _ knew the same old witches tale, however, and the pitying look she gave Steve had been enough to silence the remainder of his confession in embarrassment. But she turned him down gently, confessing her own secret; and their friendship remained, blossoming into something better. 

He watched her flick her pine and Phoenix feather wand at his chest, and it was a mark of this friendship that he didn’t even flinch. Without a word, the ink smudge on his tie evaporated. 

“Thanks.” Steve straightened his tie. “You’re getting good at that.”

“What, cleaning spells?” Robin started packing away the books, sticking her wand behind her ear, her own blue and silver tie tied loose and somewhat askew. 

“Non-verbal spells.”

They stood, stretching, and made their way out of the library. 

“Oh yeah,” Robin agreed. “It’s not so difficult, once you get the hang of it.”

“Once you stop staring at the pretty redhead in front of you, too,” Steve chuckled. 

Robin elbowed him. “Watch it.” 

The ancient librarian glared at them on their way out. 

“Don’t deny it, Bucks.” Steve nudged her back. “You should ask her out for Valentine’s day. Then I can hear less about your sad pining and more about her soft bre-  _ ow!” _

Robin gave him another sharp jab in the side. 

“Shut it.” She glanced around nervously; they’d stepped out of the library and into the relatively quiet hallway, students flitting about on their way to class or to study or enjoy the remaining rays of the afternoon sun. 

She turned back to Steve, frowning at him. “I’m not asking  _ anyone  _ out, especially when they’re dating a big scary Slytherin.”

Steve rubbed his side, giving Robin a pitiful look. “Are they? I’m sorry, Robin - ”

“Don’t be.” She waved him off. Her furrowed brow softened, and her thin mouth turned up in a small smile. “What about you, then?”

She started walking, shouldering her bag, and Steve followed her down the hallway. “What about me?”

“Who’s your date?”

“Ah.” Steve rubbed the back of his neck, heat rising to his cheeks. 

Robin whirled on him. “Steve! You have a date?”

“I, well, sort of, yeah.” He could feel the color reaching the tips of his ears and he looked sheepishly down at his feet. 

“And you didn’t tell me?” Robin punched his shoulder. 

“ _ Ow _ , Bucks. Yeah, I’m, I’m sorry, I was going to, obviously, you know that.” He rubbed his shoulder, meeting her eyes and smiling apologetically. “It just sort of happened yesterday.”

“Hmmm,” Robin narrowed her eyes at him, though the accusatory thin line of her mouth had softened into an amused smile. “Are you going to tell me who?”

They slowed as they reached the entrance hall. Students mingled here, scarves and cloaks wrapped tightly around those going in and out of the castle.

A cold gust ruffled Steve’s hair as the large wooden doors opened and a group of students walked in, the handful of Gryffindors he’d been watching before amongst them. One of the seventh years, a blond with sharp blue eyes and wickedly mischievous smile, was laughing, cheeks bitten pink by the wind, caught Steve’s gaze. His face seemed to be flickering between different expressions, an amused smirk, an embarrassed smile. He lifted a hand and turned back to his friends. 

“Oho, oh _ no _ .” Robin gripped Steve’s elbow tightly, following his gaze, a look of pure glee on her face when she recognized the object of Steve’s affection. “You’re joking.”

Stev ducked, face now beetroot red. “Shut up.”

“Oh Merlin,” Robin shook her head, amused and bemused. “How did this even happen?”

“I dunno, just sort of, you know,” Steve ran a hand through his hair, fumbling with his words, flopping, like a fish out water. “Well we were, were in Potions, and I messed mine up somehow, and he was teasing me about it, but then he actually helped me right it, and we were talking, just about, you know, stuff and what not, and we got on the subject of Hogsmeade, and I mentioned Abe and the pub, and he said he’d never been in, and I said well you’ve got to go sometime. And he, well, he said, ‘maybe you could show me’ and I was surprised so I just said sure and then, well.” 

He held up his hands. 

“You’re a dingus,” Robin laughed. “Oh this is great. Can I secretly spy on the two of you, so I can see first hand how awkward Kind Steve is?”

“Absolutely not,” Steve grumbled. 

“No, no, you’re right, that’d be too obvious. I’ll just ask Abe to be my eyes and ears. Though his eyes aren’t so good, I suppose.” Robin sighed happily, looking like Christmas had come early. “I do so love seeing you flounder.” 

The most popular pub had been crowded that day, so crowded that they ran out of seats and the barmaid kept accidentally stepping on wayward toes with her shinny dragonhide heels. The tea shop was overcrowded as well, and the songbirds the owner had charmed to sing sweet loving lullabies had to squawk to be heard over the cacophony of first dates, of awkward small talk and tea cups clacking.

This led to the least popular pub, a dingy dark and dusty place that Robin and Steve loved, being mostly full. Students with no where else to go walked in, wrinkling their noses at the state of the floor and the cloudy glasses. The regulars - several of which Robin and Steve had gotten to know by name - warily clung to the walls and their oddment of drinks, eyeing the students who crowded the rickety tables drinking dusty butter beer. 

Steve arrived half an hour before their scheduled time, out of nerves, and found a small table in the back corner of the bar, after exchanging some friendly words with the grumpy bartender (“Abe! Busy day, huh?” Abe, looking harassed as a sixth year girl and her boyfriend tried to convince him to sell them fire whiskey, gave Steve a weary smile, and said in his gravelly voice, “Harrington, good to see you -  _ no  _ absolutely not, come back in two years and we’ll talk.”) The empty table was empty because it was next to a table occupied by two of the regulars that the students seemed to be giving a wide berth. Steve nodded to them as he passed, a man with half his nose missing and spidery fingers, and his companion who wore a long cloak with a large hood, only their chin visible, their skin a strangely grayish tone. He and Robin had never spoke to them nor learned their names, but he’d seen them enough in the pub that they both gave him a little wave, the man with half a nose grinning to reveal only a handful of teeth. 

Steve sat at the small, rickety table and shrugged out of his cloak. He glanced around nervously, his heart giving an odd lurch every time the door opened. 

He did arrive, just on time, the pub door opening with a gust of cold air. He looked around for a moment, almost nervous, and then his bright blues eyes spotted Steve. He grinned and weaved in and out of the clusters of people, making his way to the small table and pulling out a rickety chair to sit. 

“Nice place,” he remarked, unwinding the red scarf around his neck and shrugging out of his winter cloak. He glanced at the odd pair at the table beside them. 

“Sorry,” Steve said hurriedly. “I know it’s dingy, but everywhere else is crowded, and it is charming after you get past the, um, general dinginess.”

He waved a hand vaguely at the atmosphere. 

“No,” Billy shook his head, smiling earnestly. “I like it; it’s cool.”

A small portly man, who looked young, older than the students but perhaps no older than thirty, with a limp, scuttled over to their table, wiping his hand on a grease stained apron, producing two dusty bottles of butter beer. 

“Giles,” Steve greeted him with a smile. “Thank you.”

Giles, Abe’s barmaid of sorts, gave Steve a weary and wobbly bow. He placed the bottles on the table in front of the pair of them and teetered off. 

“You come here often?” Billy asked, reaching across to pop the lid off a beer, passing it to Steve with a sneaky smile, and then flicking the cap off the second, bringing it to his lips and taking a long sip. 

Billy, Steve soon discovered, was charming, with that wickedly wide white smile, and so easy to talk to. He hadn’t noticed how much time passed as they sat, Giles returning to place two more bottles on the table at one point, until he glanced up, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes at a story Billy just told about a sleeping solution gone awry, and found the sun to be sinking low into the sky, casting orange rays of late afternoon light across the glittering snow. 

“It’s getting late,” Steve remarked, and took a sip of his lukewarm beer, which he’d forgotten, too enraptured by Billy’s blue eyes and sly little smirk. 

“You have somewhere to be?”

“No,” Steve said quickly, shaking his head. “No, I mean I lost track of time. I like talking with you.”

“Oh,” Billy looked down at the old, scorch-marked table, with an uncharacteristically shy smile, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “I like talking to you, too.”

Steve decided he’d quite like to kiss him. 

Heart hammering like the wings of a Hungarian Horntail, Steve leaned forward. His hand darted out across the table and he gripped Billy’s tie in his fist. 

Billy snapped his head up, eyes going a bit wide, and Steve pulled him forward, tugging at the red and gold silk around Billy’s neck until Billy met him square in the middle of the table, right over a mottled bit of melted wax, and pressed their lips together. 

It lasted for a mere moment. Billy’s lips were surprisingly soft, and his chin was not, it was stubbly where it rubbed against Steve’s jaw. He smelled faintly of honeysuckle, that for whatever reason made Steve think of the potions room. Steve’s grip loosened, and the silky tie slipped from his grasp, and he pulled away a few inches, letting out a shaky breath.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I, um, just couldn’t stop thinking about that.” 

“That’s,” Billy breathed, tongue running over his lower lip again, slower this time, as if tasting the hint of the kiss there. “Quite alright.”

He nudged Steve’s shoe under the table with the toe of his boot, gently, scooching forward in his seat so that their knees knocked together. Billy felt pleasantly warm, or perhaps Steve was simply blushing all over. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr to send a prompt or just yell about these two dinguses!


End file.
